A few days ago i bought an Acer 7730 laptop with Windows Vista pre-installed and no disks. After initial hesitation i have decided to keep vista and not downgrade to XP. After all there will be more service packs and tweaking should speed it up lots anyway.

However, i really want to get rid of the three partitions on the hard drive. There is only one physical hard drive but there are three partitions; a hidden 10GB one (EISA configuration) which from what i have gathered is now obsolete, a C: partition 111.44GB and a D: partition 111.44GB. There is no need to split a drive into several partitions now that we have the NTFS file system (unless you are using multiple operating systems of course - but i am not) so this is really annoying me.

I have made the 2 recovery DVD and the 1 applications/drivers DVD. I have an old WinXP disk that i can use to format the laptop if required.

Question:

Using the recovery disks (which i'm assuming contain a copy of my bought OEM Vista that was pre-installed on the laptop), can i delete the partitions, format the hard drive and install Vista onto a single c: partition?

I've done this exact process before with WinXP hundreds of times but i'm not sure whether i can do the same for Vista with just the 3 DVD mentioned...

My laptop is a hp dv6000 with 32 bit vista home premium preinstalled from the store. I never upgraded a laptop before so I don't know what to expect. Are all vista preinstalled systems already activated and do they use the OEM key or the product key on the bottom of the laptop? Recently my original hard drive failed and had no other choice expect to upgrade to a new one. My laptop came with the windows anytime upgrade disc so I used that to clean install vista home premium. Would the user recovery discs work instead on a new empty hard drive? When it asks for the product key the first time, I entered it in using the key on the bottom of the laptop. After everything was complete it said "3 days until automatic activation" and had the OEM key listed, not the one on the bottom of the laptop. I reactivate again using the sticker on the bottom on the laptop and it said "windows is activated", but it still had the OEM key listed. Did I enter the right key both times? Would there be any difference using the OEM key instead? Now about the recovery discs, if the "swsetup" folder was deleted before creating the discs will it still be on the disc even though it's suppose to be a factory image? Will I get the recovery partition and quick play if I reinstall again?

I just bought an SSD for my Insiron 3737 along with a caddy so I can replace the CD-RW with a 2nd hard drive. The laptop came by default with a WD 1TB hard drive which I removed and replaced with the new Intel SSD, the WD drive took the place of the CD-RW.

At first I had trouble booting when the WD drive was connected since that one had Windows installed on it as well. After formatting the WD drive I can now boot but a new problem occurs. Windows sees the WD drive a healthy, ready to use drive for a few seconds or minutes after booting and then the hard drive simply vanishes from Disk Management.

I checked the caddy even took it back to where I bought it from so they can check if it's faulty but it seems that's not the problem.

I have an Inspiron 1750 that will not recognize the hard drive. I have done the on-board diagnostics and the preboot assessment says that no diagnostic utility partition identified. I am hoping that I just need to replace the hard drive, but I did not make a restore disc before it crashed. Which of the drivers I need to restore the computer to it's factory settings.

I recently had to reinstall my operating system. Upon returning home I attempted to down the Touch Pad.exe and the message I get is this download from Dell can't be downloaded to my Inspiron 1721 operating system.

I've been trying to help my roommate out on this one and I think that the issue is hard drive is corrupt, but I'm not sure. A few days ago, he told me that Vista has been taking ages to start up.

I tried looking at to see what was going on and we couldn't even get passed the welcome screen. At this time, there were no errors showing up before the Welcome screen loaded. I got the Dell Vista reinstall disc and attempted to repair the files. Doing that didn't do anything. Therefore, I figured that his only option was to reformat.

I followed that guide that's stickied which shows you how to install the mediadirect and vista to each of there own partitions. After doing deleting the partitions and installing mediadirect to its own partition, I proceeded to installing Windows Vista.

Vista then finished installing and restarted automatically as it normally does. After restarting and going passed the first black screen (here you can hit F12 to get to bios), I get an error that reads .....

I have a Dell Latitude E4310: My computer does not recognize my inter hard drive. I found thecd/DVD drive in my Devise Manager and it had "!" next to it and the devise status stated"Windows cannot start this hardware device because its configuration information (in the registry) is incomplete or damaged. (Code 19)"

I have a HP 2000 2b09wm. It just broke, giving me the error message saying in so many words that I needed a new hard drive. Guess the old one went kaput (even though I just bought this pc on eBay not a month or two ago). I have a new HD and a Windows 8 reinstall software from a dealer on eBay. I tried multiple routes in attempting to reinstall the OS resulting in as many dead ends*.The last thing offered up was to delete partitions in the new HD. I looked at an eHow page, How to Delete Partitions on a Hard Drive. It says to get a CD that includes fdisk.com. I burned super fdisk (2 MB) from SFbootablecd.iso and fdisk (40 MB) from fd11src.iso. I went to the BIOS to configure the boot order. I put Internal CD/DVD ROM Drive first, saved it and tried both CDs. It always just boots to a screen with this:

So, my questions to you, I guess, is firstly, why are the fdisk CDs not booting? Did I burn the wrong fdisk? Secondly, do you know why my OS couldn’t be installed using the reinstall software? I’m assuming the software is legit and the computer did in fact originate with Windows 8.

*A couple of the dead ends:

Compatibility report - The computer started using the Windows installation media. Remove the installation media and restart your computer so that Windows starts normally. Then, insert the installation media and restart the upgrade. Do not select [ICustom advanced]I to perform an upgrade. [ICustom advanced]I installs a new copy of Windows and deletes your programs and settings.

Another route for Windows Setup, I get to this: Select the driver to install: Browse for Folder - Browse to the driver, and then click OK.It gives you the list under "Computer" which includes "CD Drive (E HRM_CCSA_X64FRE_EN-US_DV5" (the reinstall software) and underneath that, the folders - boot - efi - sources - support.Picking just the E drive itself, message appears: Load driver: No signed device drivers were found. Make sure that the installation media contains the correct drivers, and then click OK.

Recently my brand new studio 17 updated, about a week later I noticed that 50GB had gone missing! I of course called tech support to see if they could help (good luck) after spending hours on the phone they could not really solve the issue, asides from doing a factory reset.

Now again I am having this issue again, once Vista updated it is slowly eating away hard drive space. There is currently 31.4GB being used (yes, this includes all hidden files) on a 450GB hard drive, yet the system reports only 402 GB free space. Each day it decreases about 2-4 GBs ......

I installed XP on my laptop which essentially deleted all the old HP software. And now I want to go back to Vista. Since theres no program to do it, I'm kind of lost. However I see the HP recovery hard drive still. Is there still a way to revert back to Vista or would I need to get a copy of Vista and install it from there?

Using my inspiron 2330 (only 18mths old ) as normal next thing it tells me it encountered fault and has to reboot anyway it keeps saying scanning and repairing drive (c) then does not allow me to log in so i manage to get into bios to do a scan and it guves me a error code of 2000-0142 validation code of 112406 and and then says harddrive 0-s/n wd-wmc152946178

When i finally manage to log in my desk top screen is flashing and keeps telling my hard drive fault ....

So my mom has a 17" Inspiron 1721 from like August 2007. I have been using it off and on for the past year or so, I just today got my Studio XPS 16" 1647 :-)

But anyways, her laptop seems to run a little (burning hot to me). It's not all the time, but all she did was play farmville on Facebook for maybe 2 hours, and it's burning hot to the touch. (Half of the time it was plugged in.

I made the mistake of staggering my laptop purchase and didn't get the second hard drive installed when I bought it. Now I'm trying to put two hard drives in it, but found out that dell didn't include the caddy for the second drive in the computer.

I have a Dell Inspiron 1721 that is not detecting the battery. I have swapped out the battery with another battery and have swapped out the AC/DC charger. But it is still not recognizing the battery, it will work fine with the power cord plugged in.

my Dell laptop wont start up. I would turn it on and it would go to windows logo screen and then go black. I tried the system recovery and then it says insert the instalation media for the device and click ok to select the driver. I dont have a cd and all the drivers I use are not being recognized.

Now, I own a dell Inspiron 1721 and have recently bought 2 gig of ram, just to speed things up a little! However, when I recieved it, it came in two sepeate modules of 1 gig. Not to worry I thought as every website says the Dell Inspiron 1721 has 2 slots. Opening up the back of my laptop, I could only find one slot.

I am replacing the installed Seagate Momentus 160 gb 5400 SATA disk with a Seagate Momentus 320gb 7200rpm SATA hard disk as I need the extra space to hold my growing itunes collection and feel the extra speed would also be welcome.

I have the original Dell installation disks (Operating System, drivers etc), the installation disks for the subsequently installed software (other than the freebies including iTunes etc available on the net) and have backed up all my critical data to an external hard drive using the vista backup facility for subsequent restoration once all the software has been installed.

I will of course keep the 160 gb drive available with all it's data intact as a secondary safeguard until I have satisfactorily completed the installation and testing of the new disk.

My motherboard on a Dell XPS M1530 (configuration below) does not recognize the hard disk.

I checked the hard drive and it is working well so I concluded it is the motherboard. I need advise on how much a new motherboard would cost, which motherboard I need, and whether it is worth going through a repair/replacement.

I gave the laptop (it is out of warranty, but with the cause being water damage the warranty would most probably be void anyway) to a repair shop and they want $349 to attempt a repair or $149 to replace it with a new one (this does not include the cost of a new motherboard).

I was looking for one on ebay, however I am not sure if it will be compatible with my configuration.

I would appreciate if anyone who had the same problem or experience with a similar issue can provide any input. Here is the configuration: ...

I have a problem in bootin my inspiron 14z. Everytime when I start the boot, it always stuck at Dell logo. Sometime, it said that internal hard disk drive not found to resoldve this issue, try to reseat the drive. The system was running well just until last night.

Today I will get my XPS M1730 (warranty replacement for my Gen2). I'll get it with Vista Home Premium 32bit and I have a few questions.

1. Is the installation by dell "bloated" with unnecessary stuff?2. If it is, I plan to reinstall Vista with a retail Ultimate DVD my friend has bought. Can I use the serial on the backside of my computer for this installation to get a clean Home Premium installation?3. Will I need to activate afterwards, like call MS or something...........

I've been looking everywhere for an answer to this question and can't find it. I have an Inspiron 9300 (old.. I know), and it still works great for everything I need it to do, except one thing. I have no storage space at all.

I've been looking at throwing in a new HD, preferably as large as possible.

The only problem is all the conflicting things I hear about these systems.

First off, I know that mine is an ATA model, not SATA. I'm definitely looking for storage space above all else. So whats the biggest drive this laptop will support? I've been looking at this one (Western Digital 250 GB 5400 RPM), but I've heard things about the bios only allowing hard drives up to a certain size.